Road Vehicle Dilema

[JayTee]

Hi Guys,

 

Apologies in advance if I have posted in the wrong section but here goes.

 

Trying to source suitable Transit vans for my proposed modern image layout, I'm baffled by the,to me at least, inconsistancies of scales. As an example; 1/76 is OO, so lorries from Oxford diecast or Corgi Roadscene range are perfect. However, there is no modern Transit van suitable in 1/76, nearest being Cararama at 1/72 or Corgi superhauler at 1/64. I would have expected that the Cararama Transit would have been closer in scale to 1/76 and look appropriate at 1/72 but it looks too small. The Corgi transit at 1/64 looks better proportioned alongside an Oxford Diecast lorry but looks too big in relation to their car range or Cararama range for that matter

 

Does anyone have the same ideas/problems as myself with possible solutions to this? Easiest one I can think of is that Oxford Diecast produce a modern Transit in 1/76 but unsure if this is in the pipeline.

 

As an aside, does anyone know if any manufacturer produces produces flatbed or skeltal trailers for 1/76?

 

Thanks in advance for your thoughts/comments

 

JayTee

[Guest jim s-w]

Hi Jaytee

 

Oxford have already announced a modern transit in 1/76 scale. For other vehicles look here http://www.roadtransportimages.co.uk/

 

For a skeletal trailer see - http://www.phd-design.co.uk/Products/Trailer/trailer.htm

 

You need to decide if you want your road vehicles to be accurate (normally a lot of work, kit built or expensive) or cheap (carama - varying scales)

 

You might want a mooch through my road vehicles thread for ideas (address in sig)

 

HTH

 

Jim

[Allegheny1600]

Hello JayTee,

All I can think of for you is this; http://www.roadtransportimages.co.uk/ for your trailers or at least sufficient components to enable you to scratchbuild the flatbed or skeleton and add wheels etc to your work.

I would be quite surprised if the Carmararma Transit is too small, at 1/72nd scale - it should be too big! However if it looks too small, try running a tape measure over it and checking it out to see how close it really is.

Don't forget that modern trucks really are BIG so most ordinary road vehicles will look surprisingly small next to them.

Good luck,

John E.

 

Edit: D'oh! Mr Jim S-W beat me by one minute, sorry for duplication!

[SRman]

Try not to mix scales too much. You can mix them a bit but it is important, for correct appearances, to keep the smallest scale vehicles away from the largest scale ones. In the "abd old days" when I could only use Matchbox vehicles, I graded them from smallest to largest (the scales were given in the catalogues back then) and placed the smallest ones towards the back of the layout, gradually phasing them through the larger sizes, until the largest ones were at the front of the layout - a type of perspective modelling. It was OK to place a 1/74 scale car against a 1/73 or 1/75 one but not to put the 1/73 against the 1/75. As long as there is some distance between the extremes of scale, the viewers' eyes will not detect the discrepancies.

 

I actually demonstrated this in a talk I did some years ago with a detailed Corgi (pre-OOC) MCW Metrobus which actually scales at 1/72, against a white metal MCW Metrobus to 1/76 scale. Side by side the scale and size differences were very obvious but when separated by about 9" or more, they looked quite acceptable, especially of the 1/72 model was placed closer to the viewers with the 1/76 model further behind.

 

Having said all that, better still, stick to one scale and there will be no problem at all! 1/76.2 is true OO scale, but (IMHO) consistency is better than absolute accuracy.

[PhilJ W]

The Oxford Transit should be in the shops shortly, hopefully before Christmas. Oxford also have a skeletal trailer in the pipeline. CMNL make a 1/76 scale Mercedes Sprinter Transit type van but these are a bit expensive.

[BernardTPM]

The Cararama Ford Transit is 72.3mm long, the prototype (of the same configuration) is 5201mm long so the scale is 1:71.9, as near to 1:72 as makes no odds. The Oxford Transit will be smaller for two reasons: 1. it will be (or very close to) 1:76 scale 2. it may also be the smaller (low roof) variant. The problem could be that your relative expectations of size are out. Another example of this is when you have a normal saloon car next to a coventional (pre low-floor) bus. The chances are the roof of the car will barely reach the window line of the bus.